AHOY from the SHIPping world.

[carolynwhite2]

--- In HPFGU-Catalogue at yahoogroups.com, "quigonginger" 
<quigonginger at y...> wrote:
> 
Ginger, dressed in a captain's uniform, with matching featherboa
(some preferences are best allowed to remain without comment) marches
into Miss Carolyn's office. She plunks down a nice glass of wine, a
couple of pain relievers, and a mild sedative.

"Yes," she says, allowing a scroll to fall to the floor, "I have
questions."

-------
Carolyn, gulping down wine, pain relievers and sedative in one go, 
sighs heavily. She knew it would come to this in the end. There was 
no avoiding the SHIPpers in Theory Bay.

Weakly, she pinned a Cataloguing Group Order of Honour for 
Extraordinary Courage and Bravery onto Ginger's featherboa,

'Just as long as I don't have to read them, right? That's the deal?' 
she muttered incoherently, the lethal cocktail kicking in.

Ginger nodded brightly. 'I think they are fun! But since you didn't 
read them in the first place when you coded them, they are in a right 
mess.'

Carolyn nodded. The criticism was unarguable..and she wasn't alone 
either. She glared round at Boyd, Kneasy, Anne, Kelly...well, 
everyone really. They didn't look very sorry.

'Now listen everyone..if Ginger sorts out this stuff for us, we've 
got to play the game in future, right? She's going to write us a list 
of rules for dealing with these...things...'

Carolyn paused to look at the heaps of curling pink parchment that 
Ginger had lugged in, and was enthusiastically piling into different 
groups all over the office floor. Worryingly, Carolyn's oldest and 
baddest cat was lashing his tail and making a beeline for the largest 
and most precarious collection..good game!

--------

I have done a preliminary reading of a portion of the posts under the
relationSHIP heading, and I have noticed that most fall into certain
categories:

GOOD AS THEY ARE: no questions here.

CODED ONLY TO SHIP CATEGORIES, BUT NEED REJECTING/RECODING:

1) There are many which say in their entirety:
Bob asked: "What is FITD" (or other acronym)
Now me: FITD is.....
Should I just reject these outright without bothering anyone else?

2) Many posts are coded to both the main heading and FITD, or OBHWF,
or trio ships. Should I uncode the main heading if it only deals
with FITD (or other shipping category)?

3) Many posts are under FITD or OBHWF and also under trio ships, even
though they only deal with FITD or OBHWF. Since FITD and OBHWF are
by definition ships which involve the trio, should I uncode trio?

Carolyn:
What we want to achieve is two sections which keep the best of FITD 
and OBHWF posts, which I would describe as those which clarify what 
the theory acronyms mean and discuss them with some semblance of 
intelligence. Posts which just say 'Oh, I so hope Harry ends up being 
part of Molly's wonderful family' should be totally and utterly 
banned. Personally, I think they should not also be checked to Trio 
ships - others may like to comment on this.


CODED TO SHIP BUT BELONG ELSEWHERE:
1) When we get to sex in the WW, there are some that aren't shipping,
but are more along the lines of gender roles in the WW.

2) In gay ships, there are posts discussing whether or not JKR would
write one, but don't discuss an actual ship.

Question: I am not clear on how we are to move things to other
people's categories. I read the memo about 5.6 but am unclear if
this is something we should be doing at this time or later.

Carolyn:
The approach should be to de-check the shipping codes you are 
currently dealing with if you think they are irrelevant to a post, 
then add the gender roles or authorial intent codes if you think 
those more appropriate, **BUT then click 5.6 Review Post**. This will 
alert us to look at that post at the end of this exercise, to double 
check whether it is correctly coded, given all the alterations that 
will have been made to all the sections by then.

MULTIPLE POSTS:
Several have valid points in other areas, but the only relevant part
to shipping is a comment such as "I like the H/H ship too!" Uncode
shipping and leave the rest as is?

Carolyn: Yes, this is the right thing to do.

REPEATED IDEAS:
Basicly glorified "me too's" (other than those mentioned above).
Reject now?

Carolyn: yes please ! (Assuming there are no other codes involved 
other than the ones you are dealing with).

DISCUSSION OF THE SHIPS AS NAUTICAL DEVICES:
"We are an intertube" or the like. Some are also coded to TBAY.
Reject as shipping, but leave as TBAY? Or reject totally? (assume
nothing valid is added)

Carolyn: This is a bit tricky. We had a discussion a while back about 
whether to keep posts which chart the origin of TBAY ships, and the 
various preferences of the people involved. It can be quite fun, and 
we did decide to be a bit lenient. Could you consider carving a new 
sub-category out for these maybe? What do other people think? I do 
want to try and preserve the history of how HPfGU evolved if at all 
possible.

FANFIC:
Common under the gay ships. No canon or canon interpretation,
just "I read a really cool Draco/Neville fic...." Reject as fanfic?

Carolyn: yes, these should not be there.

ANTISHIPPING:
1) Lots of "I really don't care who ends up with whom. I think the
story is more about (fill in blank)." Many are also coded to the
blank filled in, in which case they should stand in those areas, but
should they be rejected as SHIP posts?

2) Others stop at "I don't care who ends up with whom". Reject?

Note: This still leaves quite a bit of good discussion about why
posters don't ship for such reasons as the ages of the trio and the
unlikelyhood that they will pair for life.

Carolyn: For the same reason as above on TBAY, I'd like to preserve 
the anti-shipping objections if we can, but obviously only the best 
of the arguments, which should be more than the one-liners.  If you 
can take off SHIP codes, I think that is right, to try and make this 
section self-contained and not to overlapping with others.

PERSONAL PREFERRENCE, NO CANON:
Alltogether too many "I like Ron and Hermione. They would be cute
together" and the like. Shall I take a cleaver to them?

Carolyn (grinning very happily now): Oh yesh...where's the rest of 
the bottle....


In summary, there are quite a few that I think I could whack right
now without effecting anyone else's category, either by unchecking
the ship part of it or by rejecting a post totally coded to ship
categories. Shall I commence?

Could I get a clarification on how to go about doing something that
might effect someone else's category?

Carolyn: Please start whacking without delay, don't think anyone is 
going to stop you in this section. See 'coded to SHIP but belong 
elsewhere' for clarification on the treatment of things which might 
affect other people's categories.

-------

"On the brighter side," Ginger adds smiling, "I have figured my
personal finances and have discovered that I can quit my second job
in the beginning of May, at which time I will have more free time to
devote to the project! Thank all that is good for company profit
sharing plans!"

Remembering her captain's uniform, Ginger barks to the office
personnel, "As you were!" and leaves.

The office awakens.

Carolyn:
..company profit sharing plans? Dream on if you are self-employed....

Goes off to drown her sorrows.. these wine and sedative combos are 
quite good really...